Playwrights Realm Announces Lineup for 2018 Ink'd Festival

New plays by Christina Quintana, Celine Song, and others will receive staged readings.

Christina Quintana will present a new play, Azul, as part of Playwrights Realm's 2018 Ink'd Festival.
(photo provided by Blake Zidell & Associates)

Playwrights Realm has announced the lineup for this year's Ink'd Festival, which presents new work by four up-and-coming playwrights in staged readings. The readings will take place April 16-19 at the Loft at Theater 511, with two readings of each script per day, at 3pm and 7pm.

On April 16, Christina Quintana's Azul will be presented in readings directed by Logan Vaughn and featuring Liza Colón-Zayas, Sandra Delgado, and more to be announced. The play is described as follows: "At age nine, Yadra left Castro's Cuba. Now, as Alzheimer's sets in, her mind returns to that time and place, and family secrets are unearthed for her American-born daughter, Zelia. With her wife, Zelia embarks on a journey to try to understand the love that led her mother's beloved tia-abuela to stay behind — and to better understand herself. Spanning two countries and three generations, Azul fuses music and memory to ask one question: What is the true language of love?"

Endlings, a new play by Playwrights Realm 2017-18 Writing Fellow Celine Song, will be presented on April 17 in readings directed by Sammi Cannold and starring Ako, Wai Ching Ho, Matt W. Cody, Matt Dasilva, Jack Moore, Jihae Park, Keith Michael Pinault, Andy Talen, and Lori Tan Chinn. It is described as follows: "On the Korean island of Man-Jae, the world's last three haenyeos ("sea-women") spend their dying days carrying out the tradition of diving for seafood with nothing but regret and rusty knives. Meanwhile, in New York City, Ha Young is suffering too, trying to write a play about the haenyeos that white theaters will actually produce! Wildly theatrical, this play within a play in a world all its own offers a warning: Don't give your life to an island… unless it's the island of Manhattan."

Next, on April 18, is Sarah B. Mantell's Everything That Never Happened, presented in readings directed by Desdemona Chiang and featuring Mike Braun, Edmund Donovan, Andrew Gombas, and Simone Recasner. The play is described as follows: "Jessica wants to be with Lorenzo, and Lorenzo wants to be with Jessica. The only thing standing in their way is her father, Shylock, a complicated relationship with her servant Gobbo, and thousands of years of Jewish culture and history...With as many twists and surprises as the narrow streets of Venice, Everything That Never Happened turns Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice inside out and reminds us that stories are as much about what we leave out as what gets left in."

Finally, on April 19, Isabella D'Esposito's Albert County Public Library System; Lakeside Branch will be presented in readings directed by Jessi D. Hill and starring Alix Elias, Ronald Guttman, Lilli Hokama, Judith Roberts, Jade Wu, and more to be announced. The play is described as follows: "The spectres of death and disaster loom over the Lakeside Branch — and not just in its popular vampire romance novels. Octogenarian volunteer coordinator Agatha wants things to run like they always have, but her elderly team is quickly shrinking, her fractious relationship with grief-stricken teen Madison is testing library loyalties, and to top it all off, someone is drawing men's you-know-whats in all the books! You're never too old (or young) to learn that in libraries, as in grieving, sometimes things have to fall apart for better things to come together."